For those entering post-secondary and graduate levels of education, the world becomes all about experiences. Students are not wondering why they’re learning a particular theory, lesson, or exercise, but rather how to apply it to the real world. Technology has helped to bridge the gap between the Why and the How, but usually separate from the academic setting and more as an extracurricular activity.

VentureBeat spoke with one company that is seeking to fill that gap, focusing on data science (statistics, programming, etc.). That company is Leada, and it’s launching today as a way for professors to supplement their teaching and enable students to apply what they’ve learned to actual real-world problems.

Started by Brian Liou and Tristan Tao, both University of California, Berkeley graduates, Leada tackles an issue both founders had: The university hadn’t taught them employable skills in the data science industry, just theories. They tried using Codecademy, but Liou said that it was limited to introducing students to skills. Coursera just didn’t work for them either.

The result is Leada, a Y Combinator-backed program that professors can use to give students actual experience tackling data analysis problems from industry. All course work is created by Leada and is only available through participating schools. To date, six professors from five institutions — Notre Dame; New York University; University of San Francisco; University of California, Berkeley; and Northern Illinois University — are using the service. Liou hopes Leada will be in 30 universities by the fall.

“We believe data science is a fundamental skill for everyone,” he said. “I really feel that the data science niche will be very large and always think about the pain point we solve being applied to other industries.”

Leada partners with companies and then creates the curriculum for students. Professors assign the project in their course syllabus for students to complete over the semester, like homework. Each project has auto-checks to ensure that the student progresses through the project at a good pace. Liou says that it’s not about right or wrong with these projects, but rather about students applying their knowledge. The service offers a live teaching assistant to help answer any questions.

While it’s free for professors to use, the cost is passed through to the students. Liou justifies this by saying it’s akin to purchasing a textbook for the class. The company offers two options for students: industry projects, which are $25 per student, and programming boot camps, which start at the beginning of the semester and cost $50 per student.

One thing that is concerning, though, is what happens to all the data that students enter into Leada. The program works with companies to create the projects, which may be based on real-life problems that they’re trying to solve. So by having the students take a stab at them, will companies be able to leverage those responses without providing credit or compensation? Liou says that currently there’s not an opt-out option, and professors and students are not told that their work could be used. “We’re not at a point where we feel like we need to tell what the data is being used for. We haven’t tackled that problem yet,” he said.

But Leada isn’t just about helping those attending college or university. Liou shared that his startup is also targeting enterprise companies to provide a training solution in which an instructor will be present to help teach employees about data science. The content will be the same, but the structure will be different (specifics weren’t shared, but it’s doubtful that other company data would be used in these scenarios), as will the cost. One of the companies participating is Zenefits.

Leada has received approximately $200,000 in funding from Y Combinator and the Imagine K-12 accelerator.

More information:

]]>0Leada launches to help students apply their data science knowledge to real-world projectsInteractive carnival of science, art, and technology is coming to the Bay Areahttp://venturebeat.com/2015/04/30/interactive-carnival-of-science-art-and-technology-is-coming-to-the-bay-area/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/30/interactive-carnival-of-science-art-and-technology-is-coming-to-the-bay-area/#commentsThu, 30 Apr 2015 15:00:32 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1714815EXCLUSIVE: Eric Gradman and Brent Bushnell want "to make science and engineering the new rock and roll."
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EXCLUSIVE:

Eric Gradman and Brent Bushnell want “to make science and engineering the new rock and roll.”

They’re taking that mission straight to the youth with their STEAM Carnival, a festival of Tesla coils, music, lasers, games, interactive puzzles, and of course robots — all meant to inspire schoolchildren. In October, the first STEAM Carnival happened in the Los Angeles area, in San Pedro, California. This year, it’s coming to the Bay Area.

The San Francisco STEAM Carnival will be held at Pier 48 in San Francisco over a long weekend, November 6-8, 2015. Tickets will go on sale September 21, and pricing will start at about $20 for children and $25 for adults. The Cartoon Network is the event’s major sponsor.

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“We can’t wait to bring this fun-for-all carnival to the tech-savvy and hands-on community of the Bay Area,” Bushnell said in a press release.

STEAM is short for science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics — art is added to the usual “STEM” educational focus in order to help engage kids with music, fashion, and more. The idea is to create an interactive, circus-like event where school-age kids can engage with shows, displays, and games that will help inspire them to pursue science and technology careers.

Last year’s event was spread over five days, included 90,000 feet of display and performance space, and attracted 13,000 attendees. It’s not clear how big the upcoming San Francisco one will be, but it’s safe to say that it will be big. The team plans to bring new games and spectacles, and “more lasers and fire,” to the event.

Among the testimonials the organizers sent me was this one from 11-year-old Jonathan Huffman: “You must go to STEAM Carnival. Don’t miss it! I can’t even name my favorite thing — it was all awesome!” For my kids, whom I have been bringing up with annual visits to the Maker Faire, that sounds like a pretty promising recommendation.

Here’s a photo gallery showing some of the highlights of the 2014 carnival.

]]>0Interactive carnival of science, art, and technology is coming to the Bay AreaStudy: Elementary school teachers unconsciously discourage girls from math and sciencehttp://venturebeat.com/2015/02/28/study-elementary-school-teachers-discourage-girls-from-math-and-science/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/28/study-elementary-school-teachers-discourage-girls-from-math-and-science/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 22:00:37 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1670258"The track to computer science and engineering fields, which report some of the highest salaries, tapers off in elementary school," according to researcher Edith Sand.
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Silicon Valley is a male-dominated industry, and big tech companies have spent lots of money trying to make it a more equitable place.

New research published this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that the unconscious biases of teachers can cut off talented women in grade school, even before they have an opportunity to join the tech industry.

Israeli sixth-grade students were divided into groups where teachers knew the names and genders of some students and not others. Girls tended to outscore the boys when graded anonymously, which benefited their academic performance all the way through high school.

“It isn’t an issue of discrimination but of unconscious discouragement,” explained researcher Edith Sand, an economist at the Bank of Israel. “This discouragement, however, has implications. The track to computer science and engineering fields, which report some of the highest salaries, tapers off in elementary school.”

The research dovetails with the attempts by Google to combat gender discrimination through training in unconscious bias. Helping their employees become more conscious of these prejudices could make the search giant a more equal place for men and women.

Last month, New Oriental Education, China’s largest provider of private educational services, and Tencent, the leading texting provider in China with nearly 500 million users on its WeChat app, agreed to launch an integrated, chat-centric education service. The question every university should be asking is: What does this mean for online learning?

Just 10 years ago, many of us thought online learning meant earning a degree anytime, anywhere. With smartphones, it’s now possible to learn on the move. The trade-off is efficacy. The holy trinity of online learning — content/lecture, discussion, assessment — doesn’t translate to smartphones. To wit:

Navigating content: Navigating curriculum is challenging on a smartphone. Not only because of the small screen, which requires buttons/areas large enough to be selected by thumbs, but also because we use smartphones differently; smartphone users are much more likely than PC users to abandon content that takes more than five seconds to load.

Discussion: Discussion boards can work well on smartphones. Ubiquity counts for a lot in discussions. Synchronous video discussions also work, but not for an entire cohort or section (more likely 1:1, as with FaceTime), and also for sessions much shorter than class-length. However, smartphone posts are likely to be much shorter and informal than faculty are used to (e.g., 140 characters).

Testing. Formative assessments work very well on smartphones both in a classroom environment and out of class. But summative assessments do not.

The common thread should be clear. Anything that can be done in short bursts can work well on a smartphone.

So will online education rise or fall based on our ability to reengineer learning for bursts, like New Oriental is doing with Tencent? There certainly will be many smartphone educational applications like this. But not for formal learning leading to assessments and recognizable credentials. There are two reasons for this. First, the extensive curricula and summative assessments required to impart such credentials can’t be reengineered for bursts. Second, they may not have to be, because apps open a different path.

Apps are the solution to the smartphone challenge

Smartphone users’ sessions are currently 3x longer when they’re using apps vs. browsing websites. Apps are also visited much more frequently than websites. Total time spent on apps is currently growing at an annual rate of over 20 percent, and according to comScore, for smartphone users, apps now account for over 50 percent of total time spent with digital media. 18-24-year-olds are the heaviest app users.

Apps are purpose-built. So it’s not a stretch to imagine one app for Economics 101 and another for Psychology 110. Apps are ideal for simulations and gamified learning experiences. They’re also perfect for incorporating real-world inputs (such as location of the student) into learning.

But today’s “mLearning” landscape ignores this. Current university apps aren’t about formal learning at all. They’re about course selection or scheduling or finding your way around campus. Or they’re peripheral to the learning experience (e.g., medical abbreviations dictionary). It’s instructive that on the Blackboard Mobile Learn site, product features are pictured on smartphones for all categories (announcements, grades) except actually accessing course materials, which is shown on a tablet. That’s mCheating, not mLearning.

So although most online degree programs are now delivered via learning management systems that claim to be “mobile platforms,” believing that the solution to the mobile problem is simply allowing mobile access to a course with traditional online architecture is tantamount to believing your institution’s online strategy is effectively addressed by putting lectures on YouTube or iTunes.

Ryan Craig is a founding Managing Director of University Ventures, an investment firm focused on enabling innovation from within colleges and universities. Ryan is the author of the forthcoming book, College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education (March 2015, Palgrave Macmillan).

It was only a matter of time before Google’s Classroom, its suite of tools that helps teachers more easily manage assignments and connect with their students, landed on mobile.

Today, it’s releasing iOS and Android apps for Classroom to help teachers and students do this on the go. The new apps let students snap photos of assignments, documents, or other items they want to share with teachers, and access the files they need for their school work. It even has offline caching, enabling them to access content when Internet isn’t available.

Classroom, which Google launched on desktop six months ago, helps teachers ditch paper handouts and put all their assignments online. They can scan papers and turn them into digital documents, and track students’ progress. It also helps students stay more easily on top of deadlines, and avoid losing important documents.

Classroom’s desktop version is also getting two highly requested features: a teacher assignments page, and class archiving.

With the new assignments page, teachers can track all of their assignments across all classes, in one place. They’ll no longer have to jump from class to class to view different sets of assignments.

Class archiving lets students and teachers have access to materials from old classes but removes them from the homepage and makes them read-only. They can’t make any changes or submit assignments.

Classroom is currently only available to Google Apps for Education users.

More information:

]]>0Google launches mobile app for Classroom, its toolbox to connect teachers and studentsPeerTransfer raises $22M to help international students pay their billshttp://venturebeat.com/2015/01/13/peertransfer-raises-22m-to-help-international-students-pay-their-bills/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/13/peertransfer-raises-22m-to-help-international-students-pay-their-bills/#commentsTue, 13 Jan 2015 12:00:10 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1640228PeerTransfer is making it easier for students attending college outside their home country to pay their bills, and it just raised $22 million to expand its money-related student services.
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Paying for college is a drag for anyone. Turns out it’s even more of a hassle for international students: To pay for college, they have to use expensive wire transfers from Western Union or Moneygram.

Boston-based peerTransfer is making it easier for international students, and it just raised $22 million to expand its money-related student services.

PeerTransfer works with colleges as a sort of collections agency or billing partner. Students and parents pay through peerTransfer’s portal with the payment method of their choice (the company will accept over 200 currencies and anything from Visa and Mastercard to Alipay). The company then facilitates its own money exchange. So rather than relying on the bank to exchange yen for dollars, peerTransfer will deposit the yen into a bank account in Japan and then withdraw money from one of its U.S. accounts to pay the college.

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For example, let’s say I am a Londoner attending MIT. I can pay my tuition bill in pounds to peerTransfer and in turn peerTransfer will send dollars to MIT. I incur a fee in exchange (1-1.5 percent of the money transferred), while the college pays nothing. What’s more, money changes hands within 36-48 hours. Through traditional bank transfers or money wiring services, it can take a week. But because peerTransfer isn’t taking the usual banking channels to exchange money, it can do it a lot quicker.

The company also offers a 24/7 hotline for students and their parents, so even when the school’s billing department is closed, students and parents can get answers.

There are some companies trying to disrupt international money transfers already. Perhaps the closest cousin to peerTransfer is World Remit. The company facilitates international money transfers for a low fee to anyone, but the service isn’t tied to a bill paying service the way peerTransfer is.

The company says the new round of funding will allow it to offer other student financial services, like a way to help parents furnish students with money for living expenses without opening up a U.S. bank account.

The company is also considering expanding into other industries outside of education.

“When you’re paying a $100,000 bill there’s no good way to do that unless you’re on the banking rails,” said chief executive Mike Massaro over the phone. His best example was for foreign property buying. For instance, say you live in Russia and you’ve amassed enough rubles to buy a San Francisco pied-á-terre. PeerTransfer’s network could easily make that transaction happen and likely for less than you’d pay to have the money wired.

But for the moment, there are no hard plans for how peerTransfer will move forward.

Bain Capital Ventures led the round. Spark Capital, Devonshire Investors, Accel Partners, and QED Investors contributed to the round. Since its founding in 2009, peerTransfer has raised a total of $43.2 million.

More information:

]]>0PeerTransfer raises $22M to help international students pay their billsCareers in tech: Everyone starts somewhere and students can start todayhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/12/07/careers-in-tech-everyone-starts-somewhere-and-students-can-start-today/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/07/careers-in-tech-everyone-starts-somewhere-and-students-can-start-today/#commentsSun, 07 Dec 2014 19:51:40 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1620300EXCLUSIVE: Computer science was barely taught in research universities until the mid-1970’s let alone offered in K-12 schools. Fast forward almost 40 years and we have seen a huge shift.
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EXCLUSIVE:

When I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976, the burgeoning tech industry that we know today was just taking shape.

It was an exciting time where everyone was looking to start something new and share ideas that would eventually create opportunities for people all over the world. I was part of a small crowd of people that shared a similar point of view. It was a bit of groupthink that emanated in the industry back then, all on the shoulders of what happened at Xerox PARC.

Computer science was barely taught in research universities until the mid-1970’s let alone offered in K-12 schools. You really had to seek out groups of people with similar interests and learn on the job about what was possible with technology.

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Fast forward almost 40 years and we have seen a huge shift. Technology is now applied to almost every industry and part of every career. However, many schools lack the resources to adequately prepare students for jobs that are available today and for the workforce of the future.

Computer science drives job growth and innovation throughout our economy and society. In fact, Code.org estimates that California currently has more than 80,000 open computing jobs — growing at 4.2 times the state average. While California is one of only 25 states where students can count computer science for credit towards high school graduation, only 311 of the state’s more than 9,700 schools teach computer science.

We have a huge opportunity to support the next generation. That is why Computer Science Education week is an important reminder that we need to do more and find ways that we can all come together provide resources for our students that help prepare them for the future.

The Hour of Code is a global movement with a goal of reaching 100 million students this year. The initiative is to participate in a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. This is a great opportunity for parents, teachers and schools to increase access to computer science education for their students and generate excitement for science, technology, engineering and math.

At Microsoft, we have been a long-time supporter of the Hour of Code movement and are working with schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country to help them participate. Our employees are volunteering to teach students some of the basics and help them get excited about computer science.

A celebration of national events for one week and one hour of coding is a great starting point, but it isn’t enough to meet the needs of our students. At Microsoft, we recently expanded our Technology Education and Literacy in Schools program (TEALS) to 24 schools in Northern California, bringing the total to 30 schools in California and 131 nationally. TEALS is part of our global YouthSpark initiative to empower young people with new opportunities and develop skills to help them succeed. The TEALS program is a unique public-private partnership that brings passionate computer science professionals into the classroom as volunteer teachers in districts unable to meet their students’ computer science needs.

It is great to see the tech industry come together this week as we all rally behind this great initiative. Just remember that everyone starts somewhere and hopefully for many students in the area, these opportunities will help them start today.

Dan’l Lewin is Microsoft corporate vice president of technology and civic engagement.

]]>0Careers in tech: Everyone starts somewhere and students can start todayLiaison adds Spectrum to offer tools for finding and sifting through college studentshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/11/11/liasion-adds-spectrum-to-offer-tools-for-finding-and-sifting-through-college-students/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/11/liasion-adds-spectrum-to-offer-tools-for-finding-and-sifting-through-college-students/#commentsTue, 11 Nov 2014 13:30:56 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1599986Liaison CEO Michael Behringer told VentureBeat that the purchase gives his company "unmatched capabilities to support admissions professionals [from students'] first interest through their first day on campus."
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Managing admissions is only part of a student’s journey into college.

There’s also the matter of convincing the student to come in the first place. That was a key driver in admission-management provider Liaison International’s decision, announced today, to purchase college CRM and marketing-solution provider Spectrum Edu Solutions. It is consistent with a recent trend among some tech companies to buy a marketer so they can round out their offering, such as Cognizant’s recent purchase of Cadient or LiquidHub buying Foundry9.

“The acquisition gives us unmatched capabilities to support admissions professionals and their stakeholders as we can now span the entire lifecycle of admissions management and marketing, from the applicants’ first interest through their first day on campus,” Liaison CEO Michael Behringer told VentureBeat.

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The joining of the two cloud-based companies now enables Liaison to provide tools throughout the entire customer journey — counting students as customers — of the college experience. This includes a college’s marketing, recruitment, application and admission management, student credentialing, and personalized student communications.

While some colleges have employed and adapted marketing automation and CRM systems, Behringer noted that Spectrum “was built exclusively for higher education.”

As examples, he pointed out that Spectrum offers personalized microsites for students, including information on their assigned admissions counselor.

Competitors include Hobsons, Ellucian Recruiter, and TargetX, but Behringer said that the purchase gives Liaison “unmatched capabilities to support admissions professionals [from students’] first interest through their first day on campus.”

Spectrum president Scott Mallen will now become president of Liaison’s CRM solutions. Deal terms were not made public.

More information:

]]>0Liaison adds Spectrum to offer tools for finding and sifting through college studentsHow LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman taught Stanford students to build billion-dollar businesses through personal networks (in 4 quotes)http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/06/how-linkedins-reid-hoffman-taught-stanford-students-to-build-billion-dollar-businesses-through-personal-networks-in-4-quotes/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/06/how-linkedins-reid-hoffman-taught-stanford-students-to-build-billion-dollar-businesses-through-personal-networks-in-4-quotes/#commentsThu, 06 Nov 2014 19:00:13 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1598123The founder of LinkedIn visited Stanford University’s super-popular tech startup class and dispensed some advice on how to lead a business to Internet fame. The course is curated by noted investor Sam Altman, who has opened up his Rolodex of tech celebrities and asked them to teach the next generation of eager startup founders about […]
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The founder of LinkedIn visited Stanford University’s super-popular tech startup class and dispensed some advice on how to lead a business to Internet fame. The course is curated by noted investor Sam Altman, who has opened up his Rolodex of tech celebrities and asked them to teach the next generation of eager startup founders about how to make it in Silicon Valley.

This week, professional nice guy and Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman regaled the young crowd on “How to be a great founder.” The advice essentially boils down to how to build a business through a personal network.

Here’s the full video lecture. Below, we summarize his lecture in 5 quotes

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“What great founders do is seek the networks that will be essential to their task …. Usually it’s best to have two or three people on a team, rather than a solo founder.”

Hoffman wants to rid Silicon Valley of the myth that great founders are like Superman, who can fundraise, manage products, and everything else that the business does. Instead, Hoffman says, great founders surround themselves with great people who specialize in vital roles.

“I don’t think Groupon could have ever been founded here [Silicon Valley].”

Collecting great networks is partly about location. A fashion industry startup may not thrive in Silicon Valley, because it doesn’t have the intellectual capital to foster creativity in that sector. New York is probably a better place.

“So when you think about being contrarian, you have to think about how is it that smart people disagree with me, that disagree with me from a position of intelligence.”

Hoffman says it’s fashionable to be a contrarian these days. And being a contrarian is important, but in a productive way. Good founders surround themselves with people who disagree with them intelligently. And more importantly, good founders disagree with those people intelligently. He recommends arguing with every smart person you know, to get a sense for why an idea for a startup may be founded on something that others have overlooked.

“I’m a huge believer in references. I only meet with someone when they come to me through a reference.”

Blind resumes don’t do it for Hoffman: Employees and trusted advisors come through personal networks. This is a contentious idea, since it limits Silicon Valley to the current — and mostly white — boys club, which excludes women and minorities who don’t have the same personal networks.

Regardless, as a business strategy, keeping employees to friends of friends may help to maintain quality.

Readers can see the full transcript of the lecture here, as well as find more information on past lectures.

]]>0How LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman taught Stanford students to build billion-dollar businesses through personal networks (in 4 quotes)Xamarin now lets students build native Android and iOS apps for freehttp://venturebeat.com/2014/11/05/xamarin-now-lets-students-build-native-android-and-ios-apps-for-free/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/05/xamarin-now-lets-students-build-native-android-and-ios-apps-for-free/#commentsWed, 05 Nov 2014 19:52:10 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1597206Xamarin today announced two new education initiatives for students and one for educators. For all three, the goal is the same: get more people building apps with its tools. The biggest component is a new student program that lets students build native Android and iOS apps with Xamarin Studio for free. The offering is open […]
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Xamarin today announced two new education initiatives for students and one for educators. For all three, the goal is the same: get more people building apps with its tools.

The biggest component is a new student program that lets students build native Android and iOS apps with Xamarin Studio for free. The offering is open to students currently enrolled in a degree or diploma-granting course of study.

The second part also involves students: The Xamarin Student Ambassador Program asks for help bringing cross-platform mobile development to campuses around the globe. Student ambassadors are asked to help their peers build mobile apps in C# using Xamarin.

If that sounds right up your alley, here’s what you’ll get in return:

The opportunity to work hand-in-hand with the global Xamarin team

Free subscriptions to Xamarin Business for iOS, Android, and Mac

Xamarin swag for you and your peers

Unique opportunities to participate in Xamarin Evolve and other in-person events

The ability to audit Xamarin University courses for free

The last point brings us to the third announcement. Xamarin also wants to give free software and educational materials to educators at accredited academic institutions who are teaching (or are considering teaching) a course related to mobile development.

For those who don’t know, Xamarin first made a name for itself by bringing .NET to Android and iOS developers. The company also partnered with Microsoft to bring its tools directly into Visual Studio. Xamarin’s message eventually shifted to being the startup that provides cross-platform mobile development tools.

The education push is one that many businesses, from startups to corporations, regularly experiment with. The idea is simple: If we can get students using our tools, hopefully they’ll continue to do so after they graduate. In other words, get them while they’re young.

More information:

]]>0Xamarin now lets students build native Android and iOS apps for freeMicrosoft launches OneNote Class Notebook Creator app for teachers, Office 365 subscription requiredhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/10/07/microsoft-launches-onenote-class-notebook-creator-app-for-teachers-requires-an-office-365-subscription/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/07/microsoft-launches-onenote-class-notebook-creator-app-for-teachers-requires-an-office-365-subscription/#commentsTue, 07 Oct 2014 16:15:37 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1570632Microsoft today launched OneNote Class Notebook Creator, an app designed to help teachers do their job in the paperless age. If you have an Office 365 subscription, you can download the app now for free directly from the Office Store. By offering a personal workspace to every student, Microsoft is promising the app will help […]
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Microsoft today launched OneNote Class Notebook Creator, an app designed to help teachers do their job in the paperless age. If you have an Office 365 subscription, you can download the app now for free directly from the Office Store.

By offering a personal workspace to every student, Microsoft is promising the app will help achieve the following:

Make it easier to collect homework, quizzes, exams, and handouts.

Enable all student work and teacher feedback to be exchanged automatically in one place virtually anytime, anywhere.

Combine real-time, individualized coaching of a shared notebook with the collaborative creativity of OneNote and digital handwriting.

OneNote Class Notebook Creator is broken up into three sections. The first is for notebooks, which allows teachers to look at each individual student’s work. Teachers can access the private notebooks at any time, but students naturally cannot see each other’s notebooks.

The other two sections are the content library and the collaboration space. The former is used to hand out course materials to students and the latter is a place for anyone in the class to share, organize, and collaborate.

IT administrators can install the OneNote Class Notebook Creator app for teachers by following this guide. A separate interactive guide is also available for teachers over on onenoteforteachers.com.

OneNote Class Notebook Creator was created by the OneNote team in partnership with Microsoft Research and Microsoft China. Microsoft says the groups used feedback from teachers who wanted to help improve OneNote for the classroom. Now that the app is available, educators everywhere can continue the feedback loop by emailing OneNoteEDU@microsoft.com.

More information:

]]>0Microsoft launches OneNote Class Notebook Creator app for teachers, Office 365 subscription requiredLinkedin re-ranked colleges by where graduates get the best jobshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/10/03/linkedin-re-ranked-colleges-by-where-graduates-get-the-best-jobs/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/03/linkedin-re-ranked-colleges-by-where-graduates-get-the-best-jobs/#commentsFri, 03 Oct 2014 18:45:34 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1566036When colleges are re-ranked by how graduates do in the job market, only a few of the conventionally prestigious schools make the top of the list. LinkedIn mined its massive dataset of professionals to see what colleges where producing employees at the most desirable firms in a handful of industries, including finance, tech, marketing, and […]
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When colleges are re-ranked by how graduates do in the job market, only a few of the conventionally prestigious schools make the top of the list. LinkedIn mined its massive dataset of professionals to see what colleges where producing employees at the most desirable firms in a handful of industries, including finance, tech, marketing, and media.

For brevity’s sake, here’s a snapshot of the top 3 schools in various industries:

Careful readers will notice that Harvard isn’t #1 in any of these industries. In many instances, the Ivy Leagues don’t even break the top 10. For designers, the only household name colleges are Carnegie Mellon (#1) and Stanford (#6). Most of the rest are smaller creative arts schools.

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Startups are pretty heavy on the Ivy Leagues, though. The top 10 schools for startups are:

Stanford

MIT

Brown

Princeton

Berkeley

Carnegie Mellon

Harvard

Cornell

Columbia

University of Virginia

A similar list of household names is found in finance and banking, but not in media, design, accounting, and non-startup software development.

It’s worth noting that LinkedIn rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. It is a voluntary social network, where a fraction of the population joins and a smaller fraction of users list their college. Moreover, the social network might skew towards less successful people. Linkedin is comprised of people looking for a job (or looking to move up). There’s less of an incentive for people in high demand to bother marketing themselves.

Still, it’s an informative database. Most interestingly, LinkedIn defines “desirable” job as a place people are likely to leave their current job for (so, for instance, if many Googlers join Facebook, Facebook would be more “desirable”). This kind of info is unique to the LinkedIn database and gives its ranking a competitive advantage over something like U.S. News & World Report.

The Obama administration has been attempting to build its own ranking but has been met with aggressive opposition from faculty unions, who generally don’t want any sort of vocational ranking.

More information:

]]>0Linkedin re-ranked colleges by where graduates get the best jobs75% of tech billionaires under 40 never graduated collegehttp://venturebeat.com/2014/10/01/75-of-tech-billionaires-under-40-never-graduated-college/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/01/75-of-tech-billionaires-under-40-never-graduated-college/#commentsWed, 01 Oct 2014 14:35:12 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1565617Go to college, or don't. You can become a billionaire either way.
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America’s next generation of business leaders will almost all be from the information technology sector. Perhaps more interestingly, nearly all of them dropped out of college.

Forbes recently published its annual billionaires list, and nearly all of the fresh faces came from dot.com IPOs. The top three are among tech’s most famous college dropouts, all from the team that built Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg ($34B, Harvard), Dustin Moskovitz ($8.1B, Harvard) and Sean Parker ($3B, never made it to college).

But this handful of other successful techies who abandoned college proves that dropout happy tech billionaires may dominate the world’s elite:

Fellow billionaire Peter Thiel sparked a national firestorm when he launched his Thiel Fellowship program back in 2010, which pays 20 young entrepreneurs $100,000 each to skip college and instead jump into the startup scene.

Some tech titans as Google’s Eric Schmidt, have lambasted Thiel’s message, saying it’s a terrible life lesson for the majority of aspiring technologists. Still, a number of Thiel’s fellows have managed to make a mark. And the overwhelming success of so many dropouts from such a diverse set of companies is a sight to behold.

]]>075% of tech billionaires under 40 never graduated collegeGoogle announces Drive for Education: free, unlimited storage & more securityhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/30/google-announces-drive-for-education-free-unlimited-storage-more-security-coming-soon/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/30/google-announces-drive-for-education-free-unlimited-storage-more-security-coming-soon/#commentsTue, 30 Sep 2014 15:00:52 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1564876Google today announced Drive for Education, a new service that bolsters Google’s existing Google Apps for Education service with unlimited storage, Google Vault, and audit reporting tools. Google’s new Drive for Education service offers the same functionality of Drive for Work for free — instead of charging $10 per month per user. Like Drive for Work, Drive for Education will ship with some restrictions; Google […]
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Google’s new Drive for Education service offers the same functionality of Drive for Work for free — instead of charging $10 per month per user. Like Drive for Work, Drive for Education will ship with some restrictions; Google currently limits individual uploads to 5TB in size, for example.

Google says Drive for Education is “rolling out in the coming weeks;” the company tells us it will first offer unlimited storage, then audit reporting tools, then Google Vault (in that order).

In a company blog post, Google emphasized security: “Every file uploaded to Google Drive is encrypted,” Google writes, “not only from your device to Google and in transit between Google data centers, but also at rest on Google servers.” More, from Google:

As always, the data that schools and students put into our systems is theirs. Classroom, which recently launched to Google Apps for Education users, makes using Drive in school even better by automatically organizing all Classroom assignments into Drive folders. And Google Apps for Education remains free to nonprofit educational institutions with no ads or ads-related scanning.

Google touts that “30 million students and educators” are currently using Google Apps for Education — out of the 190 million people using Google Drive globally. And Google clearly intends to lure in new education-centric users with today’s announcement.

More information:

]]>0Google announces Drive for Education: free, unlimited storage & more securityIn a mind-controlled world, yoga and meditation could be required school classeshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/26/in-a-mind-controlled-world-yoga-and-meditation-could-be-required-school-classes/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/26/in-a-mind-controlled-world-yoga-and-meditation-could-be-required-school-classes/#commentsFri, 26 Sep 2014 18:10:28 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1562390A new study finds that users who practice meditation and yoga are better at manipulating computers with their mind. Many mind-controlled computers receive their signal to act when they detect brain waves that are associated with focus and concentration. Until recently, the most advanced research on mind-controlled interfaces has been dedicated to helping paralyzed victims control […]
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A new study finds that users who practice meditation and yoga are better at manipulating computers with their mind.

Many mind-controlled computers receive their signal to act when they detect brain waves that are associated with focus and concentration. Until recently, the most advanced research on mind-controlled interfaces has been dedicated to helping paralyzed victims control artificial limbs through devices that take their direction from specific brainwaves.

“Our ultimate goal is to help people who are paralyzed or have brain diseases regain mobility and independence,” said lead researcher and University of Minnesota professor Bin He. The study found that participants with at least one year of yoga or meditation training were better at moving a cursor across a computer screen that was controlled by a brainwave-reading cap.

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But there are an increasing number of brain-controlled devices on the market. I’ve tested out a few, such as the Muse headband, and I know from experience that it’s tough mental work. It takes practice to quiet the mind and focus on very specific thoughts.

Another brain-controlled device, the Emotiv EPOC, tailors computer controls to each individual users thoughts. For instance, I tested an early version, and in order to move a cursor “left,” I had to think about what it means for me; then the EPOC defined left based on my specific thought process.

This is unlike moving a mouse or typing. I can send a text while completely drunk (but I wish I couldn’t), because moving a muscle can be done without much thought. But holding specific thoughts in one’s head is more mentally taxing.

The academic term for this mind control is “neurofeedback,” a learned technique where computer-based interaction helps strengthen portions of the brain, just like muscle training strengthens the body. And as with strength training, I’ve become better with practice.

As machines move away from keyboards as input devices, I suspect that schools would need to teach all students advanced meditation and yoga, just so they could interact with a computer. As someone who regularly reviews these devices, I’ve needed the training myself.

]]>0In a mind-controlled world, yoga and meditation could be required school classesThese StartX startups make tablets into tools for teachers and studentshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/20/these-startx-startups-make-tablets-into-tools-for-teachers-and-students/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/20/these-startx-startups-make-tablets-into-tools-for-teachers-and-students/#commentsSun, 21 Sep 2014 00:00:05 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1553507When Apple announced the iPad in 2010, some people mocked it, some couldn’t understand why anyone would need it, and many Apple fans ran to the stores to stand in line for it (much like they did today for the new iPhone). But it also opened up new opportunities in education. Less expensive and complex […]
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When Apple announced the iPad in 2010, some people mocked it, some couldn’t understand why anyone would need it, and many Apple fans ran to the stores to stand in line for it (much like they did today for the new iPhone).

But it also opened up new opportunities in education. Less expensive and complex to use than desktops or laptops, but with large enough screens and interactive abilities thanks to the touch screens, iPads and other tablets have been the talk of the education circles since the beginning. Two companies, Score Beyond and Nearpod, which recently graduated from StartX’s accelerator program, are working to change learning and teaching through tablets.

ScoreBeyond

Every year, high school students spend millions on college entrance test prep, mostly in the form of brick-sized paper books and costly classes and tutors within travel distance. But ScoreBeyond is taking on that market with its iPad apps, currently offering the equivalent of SAT and ACT prep books (and lessons).

There’s a dedicated iPad app available for each of those tests. Both apps come with assessment tests, personalized content, and “daily workout” exercises. For $4.99 and $9.99 per month for the SAT and ACT tests, respectively, students can upgrade to a premium version with additional materials and features, including 1,000 additional questions, unlimited daily practice, and twice as many vocabulary words as the free editions of the apps.

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Recently the startup added video chat tutoring to its apps. For about $45 per hour, students can take a tutoring lesson over video chat with one of ScoreBeyond’s tutors. The company has been hiring local college students that it vets for skills and prior tutoring experience. Students can also provide feedback on their tutors, both for quality control as well as to help ScoreBeyond best match students up with tutors. To illustrate, if Bob and Suzy both really liked two of the same tutors, a third tutor Bob likes could be a good match for Suzy.

Although only about 10 percent of ScoreBeyond’s students are signed up for video-chat tutoring, founder and chief executive Emrecan Dogan says all students who have signed up and still using the service, and many are pre-paying for multiple sessions in one shot.

The startup plans to add tests such as high school Advanced Placement tests for high schoolers and SAT subject tests.

ScoreBeyond competes with the many other iOS apps for SAT and ACT prep. The company was founded in 2012.

Nearpod

Nearpod is also turning the tablet into a multifaceted teaching tool. Teachers can create a variety of interactive materials, including slideshows, quizzes, essay prompts, and interactive diagrams.

Teachers can also monitor their students’ work through the teacher app. Not only does it serve up reports on performance and trends, but it also provides that information in real time, enabling teachers catch troublesome questions right away.

Although most teachers already have materials they’ve developed on their own that they digitize with Nearpod, the startup has also built a marketplace of content. Along with a fair amount of free materials, it also contain premium content, some of it teacher-generated. Nearpod invites teachers with high-quality content to contribute it to the store, giving them $2,000 up front instead of paying them later.

While the app itself is free, some premium features aren’t. When a class has 30 and more students, for instance, teachers will have to pay.

Nearpod has a few peers in the space, including Top Hat and Socrative.

Nearpod is available on iOS, Android, the Web, and as a Chrome app. The company is profitable, with $2 million in revenue so far this year. It raised $1.5 million in seed funding in March 2013 from NewSchools Venture Fund, Clarence So, and Sina Shekou.

More information:

]]>0These StartX startups make tablets into tools for teachers and studentsStudy: MIT's online physics class can teach students of all abilitieshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/18/study-mits-online-physics-class-can-teach-students-of-all-abilities/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/18/study-mits-online-physics-class-can-teach-students-of-all-abilities/#commentsThu, 18 Sep 2014 15:27:08 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1554391One of the hopes with Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is that they give anyone around the world access to great teachers. But high profile experiments with MOOCs at the university level show that students from underprivileged groups tend to struggle and that the mass adoption of such courses could exacerbate inequalities. But rather than simply […]
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One of the hopes with Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is that they give anyone around the world access to great teachers. But high profile experiments with MOOCs at the university level show that students from underprivileged groups tend to struggle and that the mass adoption of such courses could exacerbate inequalities.

But rather than simply examining how students did relative to one another, a new study of MIT’s required physics course decided to investigate whether all students who took the class learned something.

“There was no evidence that cohorts with low initial ability learned less than the other cohorts,” wrote the research team, which separately analyzed students according to a pre-test of their abilities and prior physics background.

MIT’s introductory course is designed to help anyone with basic knowledge gain a more sophisticated understanding of physics. Because EdX’s version is the equivalent of a required on-campus course in Newtonian physics, the team was able to compare how much students learned online compared to their traditional counterparts.

“In spite of the extra instruction that the on-campus students had,” explained the team, the on-campus course “shows no evidence of positive, weekly relative improvement of our on-campus students compared with our online students.”

The study’s implications should be taken in context. It does not prove that MOOCs are a substitute for the college experience, nor does it solve the fact that some demographics may benefit disproportionately from online education.

However, it is a happy tale of learning. The study proves that MOOCs are fulfilling their promise of spreading knowledge. Nearly anyone with a desire to learn, regardless of ability, can benefit from having access to world class instruction.

]]>0Study: MIT's online physics class can teach students of all abilitiesRanking colleges by employment, Stanford is #2 and Harvard is #9http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/11/ranking-colleges-by-employment-stanford-is-2-and-harvard-is-9/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/11/ranking-colleges-by-employment-stanford-is-2-and-harvard-is-9/#commentsThu, 11 Sep 2014 19:00:55 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1549222My new favorite college ranking system released a fresh report this week, and the results show why Stanford is gaining a reputation as the best college in the country. Salary database startup PayScale ranks colleges by market outcomes of graduates and found that technology-obsessed schools are the best bang for the college buck. When non-military […]
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My new favorite college ranking system released a fresh report this week, and the results show why Stanford is gaining a reputation as the best college in the country. Salary database startup PayScale ranks colleges by market outcomes of graduates and found that technology-obsessed schools are the best bang for the college buck.

When non-military colleges are ranked on market outcomes, Stanford comes in at #2, Harvard at #9, and the small, science-oriented Harvey-Mudd snags the top spot.

There are some caveats to think about when ranking by employment. Different ways of measuring income and student populations change up the top 10 schools, but the tech-focused schools stay on top. The above graph measures the mid-career salaries of all alumni. When colleges are ranked by Bachelor’s degree only, MIT ranks #2 and Stanford #4*.

Reproducing the rankings as a scatter plot reveals a clear (but moderate) correlation between the percent of students who make a lot of money and those who graduate with a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degree.

The potentially good news is that the government might be doing something to encourage colleges to prioritize job market outcomes. President Obama has proposed a new college ranking system based on gainful employment. College unions, however, are freaking out and delaying the law.

Fortunately, there are startups with the data to go ahead with these rankings, despite lobbying to the contrary.

*Note: I removed two military colleges from the ranking. I didn’t think the naval academy was an apples-to-apples comparison with the other top 10. It’s a great school, but for a very specific vocational track.

Code.org thinks that everyone can learn programming logic, even elementary school children. The computer science education nonprofit has teamed up with guest lecturer Mark Zuckerberg to teach programming through an extensive library of video game creation lessons.

This morning, Code.org expanded its online library of computer science lessons (studio.code.org) for elementary school students, and I took it for a spin.

Here’s how you teach the young to code:

What is a program? A set of rules

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“Most of us think of programs as something we write for a computer,” says one of the first instructional videos. Any child who’s played a game has experience following a program; any child who’s modified the rules of a game is already a computer programmer in the making.

Instead of writing out code, Code.org organizes commands in a set of shapes that “snap” together. The very first lesson tests if children can perform the digital equivalent of Lego blocks by piecing together pictures.

With the puzzle mastered, the curriculum has children dive into a game for helping an Angry Bird move along the screen to destroy an evil pig. In the screenshot below, I’ve programmed four eastward steps in the first lesson. I run my code and watch the bird take out the pig (or fail and re-write the program).

Voila. Instant game.

Loops – Enter the Zuck

“One thing that computers are really good at is repeating commands,” says the tech giant, in his small guest lecture on loops for Code.org.

For the unfamiliar, loops are the general computer science term for “repeat.” In the game, instead of asking an Angry Bird to move forward three times, I include a new tool that allows me to repeat commands.

As the maze between the bird and pig becomes more complicated, I have to nest loops to describe directions in the fewest steps possible. To instill the values of parsimony, Code.org cautions users if they use excessive commands.

Advanced lessons become progressively more complex, with older elementary school students taking on such concepts as variables and functions.

Others in the field

Code.org’s approach has a long history. Back in the early ’90s, when I was in middle school, I took an engineering class at a private tutoring company that taught me to build race cars from Lego parts and DOS commands.

Code.org aims to make a difference by pairing accessible games with national legislation. Their primary mission is to make computer programming a staple of the American education system.

[tweet https://twitter.com/codeorg/status/502173881453391873]

Indeed, there’s a diversity problem in Silicon Valley, partly due to poor access to courses. Last year, there were entire states where no girls, blacks, or Hispanics took the AP computer science test.

Code.org has ambitious national goals. A spokesperson for the company tells me that they plan on augmenting their new Code Studio with on-the-ground teacher training camps throughout the country.

It’s fascinating to see how some of the world’s top technical minds break down the fundamentals of programming logic into their most basic form. Readers (and their kids) can check out the lessons here.

]]>0Hands-On: Mark Zuckerberg and Code.org teach kids to code in new websiteStudy shows Zuckerberg’s obsession with charter schools may help minorities in mathhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/08/study-shows-zuckerbergs-obsession-with-charter-schools-may-help-minorities-in-math/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/08/study-shows-zuckerbergs-obsession-with-charter-schools-may-help-minorities-in-math/#commentsMon, 08 Sep 2014 19:01:59 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1547132Charter schools work for math, but not reading.
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It turns out that Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation to New Jersey public schools might just help get more minorities on the path to lucrative tech jobs.

Texas gave Harvard researcher Roland G. Fryer an impressive amount of authority to overhaul their worst schools in 2010. He increased instruction time 21 percent, replaced nearly every principal and a one-third of the teaching staff, ran all schools on “data-driven” instruction, and emphasized high expectations for every student.

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“We have shown that this particular set of interventions can generate gains in math in both elementary and secondary schools, but that it generated small to no effects in reading,” he concludes [PDF].

The results are both incredibly depressing and moderately hopeful. On the one hand, at least something works. All of the experimentation funded by generous Silicon Valley donors proves that we can help minorities in STEM.

On the other hand, the results aren’t great. The entire overhaul closes the gap between white and black students by less than half. Schools, it seems, have limited ability to overcome poverty.

For stat nerds, the study found that math test scores improved about 0.18 standard deviations, a measure of how far from the average a student ranks (1 standard deviation would move a student from the 50th percentile to the 67th). One estimate of the average standard deviation gap between whites and blacks is about 0.8, but it fluctuates widely.

Gates and Zuckerberg’s commitment to charter schools has been highly controversial, especially since past evidence on such experiments have been mixed. This shows that charter schools are beginning to discover ways of changing the education system at scale.

There’s hope, but still a long way to go.

]]>0Study shows Zuckerberg’s obsession with charter schools may help minorities in mathThis is how you visualize the value of a college science degreehttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/06/this-is-how-you-visualize-the-value-of-a-college-science-degree/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/06/this-is-how-you-visualize-the-value-of-a-college-science-degree/#commentsSat, 06 Sep 2014 20:00:07 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1545433Fusion network has a nice tool for estimating the costs of college.
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Higher education is a big sacrifice. At the cost of four to 10 years of slurping ramen noodles in a tin can of an apartment, colleges promise a big future paycheck that will make degreeless peers wild with envy. Simply telling graduates that college eventually pays off doesn’t do justice to the deep sacrifices that must be made over the long term. Some very wealthy venture capitalists, such as Peter Thiel, have argued that college is a “bubble,” and the debt isn’t worth the payoff for many millennials.

Now, former Reuters financial blogger, Felix Salmon, published an impressive animated tool to visualize the cost-benefit analysis of going to college at his new outlet, the Fusion network.

In the picture above, the trajectories show two important factors:

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1. When a science degree eventually pays more for college grads vs. high school grads.

It isn’t until age 30 that a college degree pays off, even though a college science degree holder is earning about twice the annual income ($78K vs. $42K): that means an impoverished 20s for just about every college degree holder.

An ambitious scientist who goes for the Ph.D. must wait until he or she is 35 to pass the lifetime earnings of a high school grad, even though a doctorate earns near triple the income ($111K vs. $43K).

2. The range of income. There are many very successful college dropouts and high school grads. At the upper tail of these natural born entrepreneurs: the way outperform the average college grad.

At age 35, the 90th percentile of high school grads are earning $71K versus $91K, but have been earning a near equal income for a decade, making the total lifetime earnings much higher. The top tier of high school grads will still out-earn the average science degree holder at age 44.

And there are multiple other factors to consider. A woman earns a fraction of what a man earns, so the earning gap between high school and college is also smaller.

Now, there are a few caveats with this analysis. I believe it radically overestimates the value of college. The database is from Payscale, a startup that collects salary data. But Payscale does not compare people by IQ or socioeconomic status.

These factors make a huge difference. A smart high school grad with parents who own a bank is going to do a lot better than the average high school grad. There’s an entire field of economics that views college as little more than a “signal” to employers about the intelligence of a job candidate.

]]>0This is how you visualize the value of a college science degreeWhere foreign STEM students study … and spend their moneyhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/09/02/these-maps-show-where-tech-minded-foreign-students-choose-to-study-and-spend-money/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/02/these-maps-show-where-tech-minded-foreign-students-choose-to-study-and-spend-money/#commentsTue, 02 Sep 2014 21:30:26 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1542648Many of Silicon Valley’s most respected companies, from Google to Paypal, were founded by immigrants. In the race to capture the top talent, each state has been slinging various incentives at ambitious and foreign-born students. The Brookings Institute is out with a thorough new study and interactive guide to where foreign students choose to live, study, […]
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Many of Silicon Valley’s most respected companies, from Google to Paypal, were founded by immigrants. In the race to capture the top talent, each state has been slinging various incentives at ambitious and foreign-born students. The Brookings Institute is out with a thorough new study and interactive guide to where foreign students choose to live, study, and spend their money.

Where students come from

Foreign students with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degree aspirations overwhelmingly come from the Asian powerhouses in India and China. Hyderabad, India, sent 20,000 students with a student (F-1) visa, and Beijing placed a close 2nd at 19,000. But with 426,000 STEM-minded foreign students in total, no one country dominates the talent pool.

Where students live

It should be no surprise that foreign students congregate in the largest metro areas: New York ranks #1 with 101,000 F-1 visas. When combined, San Francisco and San Jose combined have about 57,000 students, which outranks Boston’s over 53,000 students.

Interestingly enough, as a percent of total STEM students, Texas and Florida are hot destinations. 80 percent of the Beaumont, Texas, area are tech-minded students. This appears to be connected to generous incentives given by the cities and universities.

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Meanwhile, Los Angeles ranks 2nd in students majoring in business and marketing. The report finds that the University of Southern California has both the highest number of total foreign students of any school and has a unique international business MBA. USC students actually do consulting for foreign companies, with large companies paying $22,000 for this consulting service and associated travel expenses.

It appears that many foreign students have a plan to make money before they immigrate.

Spending money

If it wasn’t already clear, foreigners add to the US economy. Over the last decade, the share of upper middle income and upper income students have soared. These relatively well-off students “contributed approximately $21.8 billion in tuition and $12.8 billion in other spending — representing a major services export — to those metropolitan economies over the five-year period,” according to Brookings. “The New York metro area ranked first for total tuition ($2.6 billion) and living expenses ($1.6 billion) received from its 102,000 foreign students.”

Ithaca, New York, gets the biggest chunk of change for each students, at $58,000 for tuition and living expenses.

Unfortunately, Congress won’t be moving on any major immigration reform this year. So any policies to encourage more high-spending STEM students will have to wait until at least next year, if not longer.

The report itself has more for information that we can present in this post. You can play with the interactive graphs at the Brookings website here.

]]>0Where foreign STEM students study … and spend their moneyMaking a great online course, and why high drop-out rates aren't a bad thinghttp://venturebeat.com/2014/08/30/understanding-the-value-of-a-massive-open-online-course-mooc/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/30/understanding-the-value-of-a-massive-open-online-course-mooc/#commentsSun, 31 Aug 2014 02:00:32 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1541206GUEST: The numbers that really matter are the reviews and ratings.
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GUEST:

After 30 years in a corporate learning setting, I wanted to try something different. So, I decided to experiment in the world of massive open online courses (MOOCs), knowing I could share my passion of big data and learning with an even larger audience (after all, the “M” in MOOC stands for “massive”).

Armed with a topic I was passionate about (big data for learning), I worked with online learning platform Udemy to build my first course. Not only did this experience allow me the opportunity to expand my audience, but it also yielded a few best practices for others looking to do the same.

Lesson 1: The content itself is only half the battle

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When it comes to the content, think about it in context. While the content of any course is key, I was surprised to find that it’s just as important to emphasize the timing and format of the content’s “unveiling.”

MOOC instructors have two routes they can take:

1: Release each course separately
2: Release all their content at once

When trying to identify which route is best for you, consider whether your intended audience is likely to have the time to binge-watch. For example, an audience of busy working professionals likely only has the time (and patience) for courses that are cut into small installments. This type of audience consumes online content in a way best described as “primal” – i.e., they devour the skills and topics for which they are hungriest and those that are the most “nutritious,” then quickly get on with their busy lives.

Instructors who clearly lay out the course’s content in an introductory syllabus-style outline streamline the process for their students, allowing them to more directly access the course lessons that are most relevant to them. Releasing the content in phases has the added benefit of giving you the chance to incorporate audience feedback and make improvements along the way.

For instance, A trio of three-minute videos might be more digestible than a single video that is nine minutes long.

Lesson #2: Don’t overvalue the “course completion rate” statistic

One of the most frequent – and quite frankly bogus – criticisms we hear about MOOCs is that course completion rates are extremely low, suggesting that students lose interest and ultimately learn nothing.

The beauty of the on-demand MOOC format (i.e., students start and stop their classes as they desire) is that the student is in the driver’s seat. Asking “what are completion rates?” is the wrong question. Rather, you should be asking, “Did students learn what they needed to know?”

Online learning is different from a traditional academic setting; everyone comes in with a different level of understanding and expertise. Therefore, not everyone needs every segment of every course. A low rate of course completion is a meaningless statistic without any additional context.

Consider your course’s student completion rates in tandem with student feedback. For example: If low completion rates are paired with negative student commentary, then the content may be to blame; however, if completion rates are low and yet the feedback is positive on the whole, this tells a different story (and is a good sign!). It means the student got what he/she wanted and moved along.

Remember, skill seekers have enrolled in your course to gain a specific skill, so they are likely to focus on the segments of the course that are most relevant and of most value.

Lesson #3: Do pay attention to the numbers in general

The numbers that really matter are the reviews and ratings. Since this is an online learning marketplace, it is important to understand what students perceive the value of your course to be.

But don’t stop there. Each of the various MOOC platforms offer insight into what adjustments can be made to make the course better; or even highlight opportunities for the creation of other courses that may be in demand.

While some data points look exactly as you would expect them to look (e.g., a course on Microsoft Word may have more baby boomers than millennials enrolled), some of the insights will be unexpected and beneficial. For example, I was surprised that none of my students took my lectures over the weekend, and most chose to learn during the day rather than in the evening. Most of my content was consumed between the hours of 4 and 5 p.m. — interestingly during the last hour of their work day.

Rather than make assumptions about when your audience might find it convenient to take your course, offer it on-demand and let them decide.

Data also showed that my students still returned to my lectures to review the content more than three months after it originally launched, which, to me, reinforces the evergreen nature of the content itself. Instructors that create content with a practical, on-the-job application are likely to see students refer back to it in a similar way.

Metrics at your disposal will not only provide insight into possible adjustments, but will shed light on the content itself and the ways it is bringing value to your audience.

Despite my vast experience as an instructor around the world, my first foray into the MOOC world was an enlightening one. When I started out, I expected to expand the size and reach of my audience; what I didn’t expect was the degree to which I would learn something new and expand my own experiences.

Elliott Masie heads The MASIE Center, a New York think tank focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce. In May 2014, Masie created a corporate MOOC on Udemy to deliver content to his Learning CONSORTIUM, a coalition of 230 global organizations cooperating on the evolution of learning strategies. Click here to learn more.

]]>0Making a great online course, and why high drop-out rates aren't a bad thingHarlem BioSpace is putting learning in the labhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/08/29/harlem-biospace-is-putting-learning-in-the-lab/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/29/harlem-biospace-is-putting-learning-in-the-lab/#commentsFri, 29 Aug 2014 13:05:28 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1537265Founders of biotech incubator Harlem BioSpace are creating programs to connect under resourced kids to STEM programs outside the classroom to get kids excited about science and tech at the college level.
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Tucked into one of Columbia University’s bioengineering labs, 25 high school students are vigilantly poring over salad spinners, pipe cleaners, circuit boards, and solar panels. They are trying to build solutions to some of the many problems plaguing under-resourced communities around the world, such as lack of lighting, contaminated water, and even dangerous childbirth.

This is the Hk Maker Lab, a project of Christine Kovich and Sam Sia, co-founders of biotech incubator Harlem Biospace. The program teaches a selection of high school students from New York City’s most underserved communities the basics of engineering design.

Each group will present their product to a panel of judges from New Leaf Ventures, Microsoft, New York City Economic Development Corp., Cognizant, and Google. The winners will have an opportunity to develop their product further at Harlem Biospace.

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When I met up with Kovich outside of Columbia, she was wearing black cycling skorts and a windbreaker, her blond hair tied back, prepared to run between Hk Maker Lab and her elementary school program called Hypothekids.

“Part of a bigger problem is providing a comprehensive program for kids to get STEM education and job readiness. Kids don’t have these items in their curriculum, and schools don’t have the resources,” says Kovich. “And even if they go into STEM majors, they don’t finish,” she says.

Both of her programs are based on Next Generation Science Standards, a framework for teaching science to K-12 students developed by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The program takes an investigative approach to the curriculum, teaching across science (rather than in silos like “Biology” and “Chemistry”), and shows young people how science applies to in real life.

Hk Maker Lab is the high school version: a creative laboratory filled with high-tech equipment and research tools that teach teens how to invent solutions to real-world problems.

The program is taught by the tall, dreadlocked Dr. Aaron Kyle, a lecturer and teacher at Columbia’s University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. The Maker Lab combines traditional classroom learning with guest speakers — and a heavy amount of lab time.

What further sets Kyle’s class apart from traditional learning is that it focuses on the design and function of biomedical products. Kyle wants his students to consider whether their products are user friendly — something that often is forgotten in the development of bioengineered wares.

Investigative learning

When I visited the lab, the kids were clustered into six groups each laboring over a different product. One crew was bent over a baby doll, trying to develop an alternative to a vacuum extractor; this device sometimes used during childbirth to assist the birthing process when the mother can no longer push and/or other health issues have arisen. Most modern hospitals deliver the infant with a cesarean section in these cases, but in under-resourced hospitals, surgery can be exceedingly dangerous. Vacuum extractors have their own set of risks, but are low cost and comparatively safe.

The group took a latex balloon filled with Poly-Fil micro beads and fit it around the doll’s head. When they suctioned the air out of the balloon, it made a soft, snug fitting cap on the baby’s head. This same process, called granular jamming, is used in robotics for grabbing tools.

When I asked the children to describe the difference between Hk Maker Lab and regular science class, they told me that it was a lot more time in the lab than they were used to. But one student named Akil explained that it wasn’t just more lab time.

“With school you always do something and you know the answers. With this you don’t know what the answer is going to be,” Akil said.

Over the course of six weeks, the children at Hk Maker Lab designed some simple yet brilliant devices, including a UV light water purifier and a solar powered lighting system that runs for 10 hours straight without a recharge.

The success of these projects may have to do with the amount of resources an institution like Columbia can provide. But it also might be a matter of the teaching. What further separates Hk Maker Lab from traditional science programs is that it’s all applied learning. That means young people are using math and science to solve tangible problems rather than using textbooks to solve abstract theories and equations. What’s more, they’re enthusiastic. It’s learning without the boredom.

As the children tinker, I muse to Kovich that it would be great to have this kind of education in all schools. “Wouldn’t that be amazing?” she said, a big smile crossing her face. “But that would be too resource intensive,” she said dampening.

Tech community outreach

The rise of tech and Internet companies over the last decade has led to an increased focus on jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the STEM disciplines). Some, including President Obama, say that there just aren’t enough tech workers to fill all the high-paying STEM jobs out there — though there is certainly some disagreement about that. Still, the government (state and federal), as well as big tech companies like Microsoft and Google, are dumping money into preparing the next generation of tech workers.

As a result, tech communities are focusing on schools, where for many years STEM programs haven’t been given much attention.

Tech companies also have a diversity issue, creating an incentive to reach out to children in poorer economic regions where minority populations are higher.

But funding programs directed at schools in these areas is tricky. Unless a company funnels money directly into the Department of Education, it’s forced to choose an individual program, which will ultimately fund a tiny selection of students from under-resourced areas.

Kovich admitted that choosing students for Hk Maker Lab is difficult. “You can’t pick kids from low-performing schools because they’d be lost,” she says.

And that leads to a sticky problem: Are programs like Hk Maker Lab really helping the ones who need it most, or are they giving an extra boost to those who are already ahead of their peers in STEM education?

Hk Maker Lab’s students came from schools with STEM programs in under-resourced areas like Frederick Douglas Academy I in Harlem, which is rated near average in the New York City schools system. In other words, the children chosen for this program already have access to a decent STEM education. So what Hk Maker Lab offers is basically a free program for students who otherwise couldn’t afford this kind of experience.

Small programs don’t help everyone

“These programs are at best likely to reinforce skills and interests, and they may not have any effect. And the in the mean time, the vast majority of kids have the same sort of mind-numbing experience in math and science, because of the fact that they’re in under-resourced schools,” says Rosyln Mickelson, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.

While small specialized programs are important, they don’t do much in the way of beefing up STEM education for those who aren’t receiving it adequately. Most of the students I interviewed at Hk Maker Lab already had plans to pursue engineering or computer science at the college level.

There are plenty of other STEM-related extracurricular programs and camps that recruit students from New York City’s public schools, such as NYCEDC’s Generation Tech. The program teaches 40 children, with no coding experience, how to code every summer. But that’s only 40 out of New York City’s more than one million public school students.

“Ideally our programs would touch every student, but one of our main focuses are providing a pathway to the middle class” says Ian Fried, a spokesperson for the EDC. “We are the Economic Development Corp. and not the Department of Education. [Our] goal is to help a group of students to become prepared in a niche field and to help get their foot in the door in these fields,” he says.

Using outside school programs to make up for the lack of education happening year round in the classroom is certainly one way to address educational disparity, but its not likely to make much of an impact in the larger scheme of things. Ultimately, to really afford students equal educational opportunities, the city needs to improve the quality of science and math education in all of its public schools.

Next step: Teach the teachers

However, sometimes baby steps are key. Talking to the children in Hk Maker Lab, it’s clear that Sia and Kovich hit their mark. These kids are hooked.

Ultimately, Sia and Kovich have bigger plans. Next year the program will select teachers from certain schools to learn alongside the students, so they can take what they’ve learned back to their classrooms — hopefully bringing these applied teaching methods with them.

That progress may only affect a single classroom at a time, but the program may prove effective at keeping students on the STEM path after high school. Some 58 percent who declare a health science or computer science college major defect halfway through the program, according to Complete College America.

The final week of the program, all 26 students gathered at Davis Hall Auditorium to present their prototypes — as well as business plans for companies based around these potential products. They had identified target customers, likely funders, and more.

When they announced which teams will go onto develop their product at the Harlem BioSpace, one girl shouted, “Yes!” over the crowd.

It’s sad we can’t provide more children with engaging education opportunities. But at least there’s hope that once connected to programs like Hk Maker Lab, students will stay excited about biotech engineering at the college level.

It’s unusual for businesses to interact with students in a major university class, and its an important reason why so few students graduate without having solved real world problems. But, Johns Hopkins University and online course provider Coursera, may have found a novel solution to bridge business and students.

With an eye on training the next generation of data gurus, Johns Hopkins has been running a free data science course through Coursera and just announced a partnership with tech startup Swiftkey, which will design and tutor students as they complete their final homework assignment (a “capstone”).

“This is a completely new way to scale the education of data scientists,” professor Jeff Leek writes to me. For a few months, I’ve actually been enjoying Leek’s class in my ongoing review of data science courses across the big online course providers. In some ways, it’s comparable in quality to the statistics graduate courses I took at the University of California at Irvine.

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But massively open online courses (aka MOOCs) don’t scale hands-on learning well. This is where Coursera thinks it can find a profitable fit between online education and vocational learning. Through its “signature track” service, Coursera charges students for access to the capstone project and a verified certificate of completion. Leek’s courses are $50 a course, or $500 for the whole data science track.

Up until now, the capstones’ pretty much resembled the kinds of homework I encountered in grad school: find a dataset, run some code used in class, and write a report. Swiftkey, a London-based startup that designs auto-completion software for keyboards, will help design a final homework assignment that mirrors the data problems students will encounter in the real world.

“We are going to give our learners unstructured data and a vague set of instructions, just like they would encounter in industry, and let them demonstrate the skills they have learned along with their personal creativity,” Leeks wrote. The projects are available this fall.

At an actual university, it’d be unusual for a statistics professor to let a startup design homework problems. Academics generally thumb their noses at vocational training. Coursera, it seems, has found a way to let in some real-world skills.

For anyone thinking about taking the data science series, note that some of the courses may be difficult for beginners. I tried my hand at the data-wrangling course and found myself in the middle of a tiny revolt of students who found it too difficult. I haven’t found any courses online yet that I think can take a beginner completely through the process of becoming a data scientist without a lot of frustrating self-teaching outside of the curriculum.

That said, I still found it valuable to take the courses and do recommend them for both beginners and those who want to refresh their skills (I also enjoy Udacity’s data science series so far).

If the partnership proves successful enough, it might help Coursera pay back the massive rounds of funding it has received and find a path to profitable education for all.

Update at 12:21 p.m. PT: Updated to reflect the accurate name of the new version, that it has a separate pricing structure, not a separate product release.

Two months ago, the Ginger Page app launched to help people improve their writing skills by correctly spelling and suggesting synonyms, better sentence syntax, and more.

Today, the company is launching Ginger Student, a version of its product focused on students and available as a desktop app and a browser extension. A new, more affordable, and student-friendly pricing tier is now available for the desktop app and browser extension of its Ginger Page app.

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Normally, I’d consider such product repackaging rather yawn-worthy, but Ginger Student is attacking a question I’ve long had: Is there technology that can help people with their writing, just as we have technology to help with math and memorization?

Companies have gotten good at creating applications that spit out math problems that you can work out and submit an answer to. They’ve also gotten really good at providing you with quizzing apps to help with memorization (history dates, vocabulary words, etc.). But what about writing problems, which don’t have an objective answer, as math does? Writing skills also can’t be evaluated via a simple quiz as writing requires analysis on various levels and is highly subjective.

Just like in the original version, Ginger packs in a proofreader that detects grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, a rephraser that suggests alternatives in real-time, access to a dictionary with definitions and synonyms, and a text reader that can translate text, with context, into more than 40 languages.

“We expect Ginger Student to be very popular among students this fall as it offers a number of unique features — such as contextual awareness, advanced proofreader and real-time corrections – that are critical to writing grammatically correct college-level essays,” said Ginger Software chief executive Maoz Shacht in a statement.

This version also sports a sort of “personal trainer,” which studies and adapts to each student’s writing style, crafting personalized feedback and training, and making a dictionary and a “favorites” section available while the student is writing.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see if Ginger Student becomes popular with students and to see how helpful this natural language processing company’s tool really is. Ginger Software originally began as a company focused on helping English learners. While it can likely help students get their writing to a decent level of competency, can it help them take it to an even more advanced level?

That remains to be seen. Moreover, there are other similar services including Hemingway, which recently released a desktop app after starting on the Web, and Writer Pro, a pricey software suite that handles the entire writing process. Students, and writers, should definitely check them all out.

More information:

]]>0Ginger launches student-friendly pricing for its writing coaching app (update)Survey: Coding bootcamps actually work. For the graduates, at leasthttp://venturebeat.com/2014/08/08/survey-coding-bootcamps-actually-work-for-the-graduates-at-least/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/08/survey-coding-bootcamps-actually-work-for-the-graduates-at-least/#commentsFri, 08 Aug 2014 19:02:22 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1520964Bootcamp school-finder Course Report commissioned a survey of 432 bootcamp graduates and found that the average salary of those who enrolled in such bootcamps increased 44 percent ($55,000 to $85,000) and full-time employment jumped 26 percent [PDF]. More interesting is the fact that 69 percent of respondents who reported starting out with no programming experience ended up with a full-time job in tech. The unemployed […]
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Bootcamp school-finder Course Report commissioned a survey of 432 bootcamp graduates and found that the average salary of those who enrolled in such bootcamps increased 44 percent ($55,000 to $85,000) and full-time employment jumped 26 percent [PDF].

More interesting is the fact that 69 percent of respondents who reported starting out with no programming experience ended up with a full-time job in tech.

The unemployed are turning to a new cottage industry of programming education bootcamps to get in on the lucrative tech market. Dev Bootcamp, General Assembly, and Launch Academy are among a new breed of schools that charge students around $10,000 and promise gainful skills in only a few (intense) months of instruction.

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“I had zero programming experience, went to DevBootcamp, landed a first software engineer job at Ancestry.com for one year, and I’m now working at Uber,” engineer Guillaume Galuz told VentureBeat via email.

Of those without a college degree and with no coding experience prior to their bootcamp, 71 percent now have a full-time programming job.

The rest of the report’s conclusions need to be taken with a big grain of salt. Course Report has a vested interest in the outcome of the survey. Additionally, it’s a highly unusual sample: Only 48 percent of the students had a full-time job prior to joining a coding camp. That compares to the full-time employment rate for college grads of 85 percent for those who graduated in 2008.

Given the dire straights of the survey population, it’s easy for most any schooling to show a big positive impact.

Unlike massively open online courses (MOOCs), some of these bootcamps also offer leadership training and job counseling to nudge reluctant students into graduating. However, they are much less flexible than online courses and a lot more expensive (MOOC provider Udacity is about $150 per month).

But this is the first report I’ve seen on the new crop of tech-focused, in-person vocational schools. It’s a promising sign that these high-intensity training camps can produce coders super quickly and for relatively little money.

]]>0Survey: Coding bootcamps actually work. For the graduates, at leastCollege & the source of inequality, as seen in one elegant charthttp://venturebeat.com/2014/07/30/college-the-source-of-inequality-as-seen-in-one-elegant-chart/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/30/college-the-source-of-inequality-as-seen-in-one-elegant-chart/#commentsWed, 30 Jul 2014 18:28:54 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1516949"Technological change is the most important driver of this explosion in inequality," MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, wrote to VentureBeat via email.
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The median weekly income for a college graduate is 64 percent higher than a high school graduate, and it’s 45 percent higher than a worker with some college ($1,098 vs. $757 vs. $666). The richest high school graduates barely make more than the median graduates with an advanced degree.

The rising benefits to college graduation could be because tech jobs are in super-high demand. the most recent job openings report from Georgetown University show that the hottest jobs are in software and information technology.

“Technological change is the most important driver of this explosion in inequality,” MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, wrote to VentureBeat via email. Technology increases productivity per worker, magnifying the worth of higher skilled employees. There are other important potential drivers of inequality, including globalization and the fall of labor unions, but technology is certainly a main factor.

What is not clear is whether sending everyone to college will create an equalizing effect on the economy. Nearly half of college students never graduate from college, and pushing more marginally qualified students into a university or community college may not solve the problem.

Some massively open online course (MOOC) providers, such as Udacity and Coursera, are attempting to create their own cheaper, vocationally oriented degrees. For a few hundred dollars and a couple of weeks of at-home training, many workers can get trained in the latest tech trends.

This holds promise for many students who could not attend a traditional college, but not all of them. We still don’t know whether rising inequality is inevitable.

]]>0College & the source of inequality, as seen in one elegant chartTreehouse claims it can turn waitresses & electricians into $80K/year coders in just two yearshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/07/21/reehouse-claims-it-can-turn-waitresses-electricians-into-80kyear-coders-in-just-two-years/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/21/reehouse-claims-it-can-turn-waitresses-electricians-into-80kyear-coders-in-just-two-years/#commentsTue, 22 Jul 2014 00:05:55 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1511025Let's say you want a job making apps or sites. A charming new video from learn-to-code online school Treehouse lays out the basics.
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Let’s say you want a job making mobile apps. Where do you start?

Treehouse — an online tech school for job seekers — decided to answer that question with a charming video that lays out the basics needed to make mobile apps, websites and web apps:

The idea came “from a discussion with an exchange student in our house,” Treehouse co-founder Ryan Carson told VentureBeat.

“‘If I want to make an iPhone app, how does that work?'” he said the student asked.

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Treehouse, launched in 2010, is “an online school that teaches you how to make apps, and takes you from zero to job-ready.”

Up to now, Carson told us, the organization has been “getting its curriculum ready,” and it just recently started up a job placement service. That service is matching Treehouse students with jobs all over the country, he said, and, while he declined to cite figures until more time has passed, he said the placement rate “appears to be high.”

Carson noted that Treehouse students, working an hour a day, pay a subscription fee as small as $25/month.

“In six to 12 months,” he told us, such a person “could become a junior-level iOS developer, making about $45,000 a year.” In two years, Carson said that person’s increased skill level could boost them into an $80,000/year job.

The company, which currently has 10 teachers and over 70,000 paying students, uses a combination of video, online coding and quizzes. It has raised $12.6 million in venture capital, and has trained over 160,000 students to this point.

By comparison, Carson said, a more established online tutorial site like Lynda.com “is focused on a skill, like learning Photoshop,” while Treehouse is “focused on getting people into jobs.”

Aren’t programmers usually the techie and math types?

“In reality,” Carson said, Treehouse has found “no correlation between math and coding, or between science and coding.”

“Some of our most talented developers have [been English majors],” he said. Or waitresses or electricians.

At least it listened to the National Education Association and other education-minded organizations that had protested the initial FCC E-Rate proposal that FCC chairman Tom Wheeler offered.

The NEA director of government Relations Mary Kusler told VentureBeat today that the $2 billion E-Rate plan that the agency approved is “a step forward.” The FFC approved it on a 3-2 vote.

“We are pleased with what was eventually approved,” Kusler said.

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In mid-June, the agency released a plan for using E-Rate funds.

The E-Rate program has been around since 1997 and has provided billions in support for connecting schools and libraries to the Internet. The funding comes from the Universal Service Fund, fed by a fee on consumer phone bills. Last year, the federal government spent $8.2 billion from the fund, which also provides money for several other programs, including subsidies in rural areas for phone and Internet.

But the challenge these days is not simply connecting the schools and libraries with some form of Internet since at least rudimentary service is common. The challenge is connecting broadband Internet and enabling wireless.

According to Kusler, the concern of her organizations and others — including the American Federal of Teachers and the National PTA — was that the initial plan de-emphasized broadband connectivity “to the school door” and focused most of the approximately $2 billion available for creating wireless capability inside.

The program didn’t have enough money to do both at the same time, she said, but the schools needed to get broadband first. Most of the schools could provide internal wired access to broadband.

“Connectivity is the most important part,” she told us, because “there are still large portions of rural [and urban poor] communities that don’t have broadband” to the school. Kusler noted that the Obama administration has committed to having 99 percent broadband connectivity to all U.S. schools within five years.

The plan as approved today flips the initial focus, emphasizing funding for the broadband connectivity to the building and, Kusler said, “what’s left over will be used to test out Wi-Fi.” The funding for Wi-Fi will now come in part from other unused funds and other sources, but, in a kind of “safety valve,” external broadband connectivity has priority.

The FCC did not respond to our request for comments.

But while the FCC seems to have pleased the educational groups for now, there are still pending questions.

How is Wi-Fi inside all schools going to be achieved? How is full broadband connectivity going to be achieved, since even the $2 billion is not enough? The E-Rate funds are capped at a level set back in 1998.